Quality, not quantity

As with most things in life, you can't expect the world over night. Equally, when setting objectives we should establish why these are our objectives.

I am involved in communities like Twitter because I believe they have something significant to offer in terms of engagement. Digital Signals recently covered the growth of the Twitter community, and with it's growth we need to ensure we aren't drawn to the new crowds of people who are following for the sake of following, and lose the value that Twitter offers.

I don't have any targets with Twitter as far as followers are concerned. Sure I'll keep growing my following numbers, but hopefully only with people I believe add something to my streams value.

When Digital Signals started, it was during a transition in my career from IT management/network design and analysis to digital media delivery/production. It presented a platform for me to share my thoughts as I became accustomed to my new surroundings and became more involved in the subject matter.

Initially it was frustrating, that after over decade of working in IT up to a senior level, I was now back down to effectively square one. But I wasn't, I still have over a decade of experience of delivering technology, communicating about technology to others, and now added to that I have the passion I hold for digital media.

One of the things I've learnt of the years is patience is a virtue. In order to achieve my transition to a similar level in digital media as I achieved in IT, I needed to approach my personal development in a staged plan, working towards a final goal.

Digital Signals was, and still is, very much part of that plan, it continues to offer a platform to share ideas and observations. Twitter and other social networking tools have become extensions to that platform, dynamic, every varying extensions.

There's an obvious synergy between the Twitter community, blogging and my digital work, which is great as I enjoy them all. But, as with my work, I need to try and ensure that while using both my blog platform and Twitter that I offer value back. It's very easy to regurgitate news stories, it's much hard to speak about personal opinions and ideas.

But its the personal opinions and ideas that I believe are the real value that we all have to offer to the social media network. Rather than following a groove that is being ploughed for us, we need to step up and express our own opinions.

I read Rob Diana's post on regular geek a few days ago, about whether we are following the wrong people. The post hit on this very subject, while Rob and myself don't deny there is a value to following the heavily followed users on Twitter and the blog environment, there may be greater value to be gained from following others that are on the periphery.

My aims are to increase my experience in the digital media market, to hopefully in return to offer my gained experience and ability to others to help them to achieve their aims or targets on that platform.

In the meantime to enjoy my work and to express myself with passion, and with this passion to inspire others to adopt principles or ideas that they might feel may help them. But, I can't do this by myself, I need to blend my ideas with others that I feel will add to my own, and, in turn increase their value.

I hope my knowledge increases daily investigating others blogs and reading Twitter streams. I hope that by sharing ideas and thoughts with others I can develop a better understanding of these thoughts myself. I need to work at developing relationships and communicating ideas with others as that is an essential part of my work, Twitter and my blog offer me a previously unrivalled interface to do that.

I need to remember to focus my attentions at what I think I'm good at, to ensure that what I offer back has a higher value due to my now greater understanding of the subject matter.

Progress, well true progress isn't going to happen over night, I need to work at this plan with with attention to detail but with a vigour that will allow me to reach my goals.

I'll leave you with Loic Le Meur's interview with Seth Godin, yes I know, he's one of the big names out there, but he still speaks a hell of a lot of sense.

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